Blargh, I'm about to start my day's writing right now. Admittedly losing momentum and have been for the last few days but I keep going because I keep imagining how happy I'll be to have the very rough draft of a complete novel by the end of the month.

I still think my idea's good, it's just I'm not accustomed to working in such a sustained fashion on one idea. Or, well, I have worked in sustained fashions and more intensely on other finished pieces in the past but they've been much shorter pieces so I would have moved on to a polishing stage, etc. by now. It's just a long time for me to be stuck in the first/drafting stage and I still have a couple of weeks to go. And as I'm working it out, questions arise to show me where the holes are in my premise, and maybe I need to rethink some things and while that's always scary, I know if I keep working at it, I'll work it out in the future while re-writing/editing and know from past experience that's all part of the writing process anyhoo.

I looked at the calendar and want to start turning my novel towards a finale by November 25 or the last NaNo weekend of November so I have a few days to wrap it up. For some reason, it's really important for me to have written the ending by the end of the month and not leaving it till afterward.

I know what you mean, seitanicverses. The last piece I wrote that I really liked was six pages long. This is very different.But your post sounds almost like a pep talk to me, and I know I want to keep going - regardless whether I get to finish NaNoWriMo or not. If it takes longer, I'm okay with that. It's just that I've been carrying this idea with me, complete with plot twists and rather unusual "monsters" and everything, for a very long time and I NEED to write it down. I even have an ending (or two, surprise surprise), so I have enough reasons to prevail.

Oh, and the archived NaNo pep talks by Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman helped me a lot. (I even remember getting Neil Gaiman's pep talk in the (e)mail - it must be from last year?!) Apparently the thought of throwing everything out mid-draft is very common. ;)

Something else. And I guess it's one reason why I'm lagging behind.I thought the best way to write a whole novel would be to visualize what a chapter would be about - what needed to happen in the plot at that point - and to write the chapter, much like a short story. And then move on to the next one. I can write short stories, so I thought I could do this.Well. The structure of my book got more and more chaotic, and I'm not entirely sure whether it just happened because of the plot or whether it was my lack of motivation (and time, and sometimes words) in the second week. So I wrote whenever I could - whatever I felt like writing that day. Yesterday I wrote mainly dream sequences (that I will need at different points in the story) and a description of a room. So my draft looks very much like a half finished jigsaw puzzle now - here a (very badly executed) dialogue, there a confrontation that takes place about a week later. I wonder if I'll ever be able to connect everything in a way that's good to read, if you know what I mean.There are some necessary gaps that I need to leave open, in order to scare the protagonist and puzzle the readers - but that doesn't mean it has to be incoherent. To the contrary. I think that if the book has a proper structure and is "easy to read", the occasional information gap will be much more unsettling.Wish me luck. (I want to do this so much.)

I didn't write AT ALL yesterday, but for my personal challenge, it puts me exactly where I usually am-a day behind. (i'm being a rebel and writing 82 short stories that are all interconnected to tell a larger story arc, but it lets me jump around chronologically even as I go in order of word prompt). Going to the write in today so hopefully, that will help.

_________________"Vegan to me means Oreos for breakfast." -Poopiebitch"tl;dr: I quit working to drink beer paid for with gift cards" erikasoyf*cker

Well. The structure of my book got more and more chaotic, and I'm not entirely sure whether it just happened because of the plot or whether it was my lack of motivation (and time, and sometimes words) in the second week. So I wrote whenever I could - whatever I felt like writing that day. Yesterday I wrote mainly dream sequences (that I will need at different points in the story) and a description of a room. So my draft looks very much like a half finished jigsaw puzzle now - here a (very badly executed) dialogue, there a confrontation that takes place about a week later. I wonder if I'll ever be able to connect everything in a way that's good to read, if you know what I mean.There are some necessary gaps that I need to leave open, in order to scare the protagonist and puzzle the readers - but that doesn't mean it has to be incoherent. To the contrary. I think that if the book has a proper structure and is "easy to read", the occasional information gap will be much more unsettling.Wish me luck. (I want to do this so much.)

This is really very much what I'm doing in the jigsaw style and I'll rearrange and reorganize where necessary and re-write some stuff and put it all together later. What I have is far from cohesive. When I went through the pages of what I've already written, I had to laugh because for about a week, I kept starting my chapters with the same sentence as if I wanted to tackle that idea that day, then began writing about something else entirely for the chapter instead and then I finally got around to finishing off the rest of the scene that began with that sentence about a week later. My manuscript is in chaos right now, for sure.

Do you go to these in your community? I do get emails from NaNo Torontoers and they have these downtown. I never go to them but I am curious. They're probably having some kind of NaNo coffee klatch this morning that I'm missing and here I am writing again awone.

I wrote 2,200 words today. Yay, progress! Still behind though. My story already needs a lot of editing. I was reading the Nano pep talks and they're really good and inspiring. I wanted my story to seem realistic, so I added all this every-day boring crepe (like putting something in the microwave). One of the pep-talks said to never do that and to only tell the important things. That's a good idea. Now I just need enough BAM POW WOW things to fill up a whole book, so I can ditch the boring stuff. Ugh so much editing. I did write two great scenes today though and one is a sexy scene. Finally, fireworks!

My story will also be a jigsaw puzzle that needs to be edited together right.

Bastah, do you mean that "no doorways" pep talk? Well, it's a mix-and-match thing for me. Sometimes my story really needs entries and doorways, but I guess that's what the writer was saying anyway. To focus on what's needed to tell the story.My favourite piece of writing advice is from Chuck Palahniuk and goes something like this: Write the book you'd want to read. :)

BTW, I'm only at just over 12,000 words, but I'm not giving up. I have a lot to do at work, and it's not always easy, and sometimes I just couldn't write at all. But it's fun looking at the NaNo stats and trying to push the date under "At This Rate You Will Finish On" closer to the end of November (mine is currently stuck in late December - but we'll see).

Last edited by Phoenix on Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

And the worst part? It's not lack of plot. It's not lack of enjoying my characters and story.

It's lack of time. I set aside time every day to write, but something always interferes.

This might be the first year since 2004 that I don't finish. I'm pretty bummed about this.

(this is not to say that I'm giving up--HELL TO THE NO. I will continue to attempt to rally and regain lost ground. Just... I'm really bummed, and this is yet another thing that's making facing my job really hard. My annual fun with NaNoWriMo has been a huge part of my life for years, and I'm losing it now too. ARGH.)

_________________Your heart is a muscle the size of a fistKeep loving, keep fighting

Bastah, do you mean that "no doorways" pep talk? Well, it's a mix-and-match thing for me. Sometimes my story really needs entries and doorways, but I guess that's what the writer was saying anyway. To focus on what's needed to tell the story.My favourite piece of writing advice is from Chuck Palahniuk and goes something like this: Write the book you'd want to read. :)

Yep, that was the pep talk! Then after I wrote that here, I followed the other pep talk about dares and I did three of them and got some crazy material that I really love. Not sure if it's just too out of the realm of my character though. There was a dare where you write for 3 minutes without thinking or stopping. I was starting a new scene and didn't know what it would be about, so I just started typing fast and got a new scene (start to finish) in that 3 minutes that lead in a crazy direction. Of course, after that 3 minutes, it needed serious editing and beefing up. Then I did a dare where you make your main character and villain pretend to be friends. I did my own twisted take on that and came up with something twisted, awesome, and evil, which followed my 3 minute scene. Another part of the twisted scene was using the word "elsewhere," which is what really took the scene in a crazy direction. I freaking love Nano and the pep talks! Those dares got me 1500 more words and were the most fun I've had while working on this book.

Ha! I was a bit skeptical about the dares at first (not wanting my novel to spin too much off track), then my curiosity won and I gave it a try. "We dare you to begin your next chapter with a lyric from the next song you hear on the radio."Oooooo! <3

Fun! And when I said it went in a crazy direction, I mean it was adapted, so that it was still within the realm of the story, but it was something wild and fun that I wouldn't have come up with on my own and it really pushed my main character in an interesting direction with her personal growth. Now I can have fun with the consequences and backlash of what happened, which could make this event the catalyst for everything that happens in the story now. It all fits together and just gives more motivation for what I already had planned. Again, YAY DARES!

Oh, wow! I chose a random song generator and just went with it. Bob Dylan flicks the weasel!I already have a chapter that's called "Six feet out of sight", so it fits perfectly.The song was "The Times They Are a-Changin'", and it has so many lines I can use.(Even though Terry Pratchett has already had the zombie activist Reg Shoe say "Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall", haha.)See you in a couple thousand words, I hope!

Last week was a rough week for NaNoing for me. I mean, I kept up my word count but wasn't into it. Feeling into it again! Today is the halfway day (being November 15).

I might stop trying to write my story so chronologically now and be more vignette-ish with the narrative from here on in. I don't think it matters much if I switch my approach somewhat halfway through, now's the time to experiment with stuff to see if I can find the style I'll ultimately want it told in.

I've had to stop writing chronologically a couple times too. My friend is a professional novel writer and her story is all over the place. She said she'll have to put all the scenes in order later. So it's normal. I still have trouble getting myself to do it though. I noticed that if I jump to a scene I'm excited to write, I get back my writing mojo.

This morning I went through and found pages of stuff I wanted to cut from the story or rewrite, so that bummed me out. Half of it was what I wrote yesterday. I was thinking about how my word count was a joke because of that. The weird thing is that while I hated a lot of what I wrote last night, I absolutely loved the other half of what I wrote. Somehow I conveyed exactly what I wanted with such difficult material to work with--I have no idea how I did it. It made me feel like an actual writer (I don't know if I could ever call myself that).

Then I started writing today and I actually love everything I wrote! The writing feels like what the writing for the whole book should be like, but I've only had this kind of luck a couple days this month, so I'll probably have to do a lot of editing/rewriting.

Is anyone else's word count thingy broken? Mine won't update, so it's still saying that I only wrote 41 words today when in fact I must be close to the 1,667 is should be writing every day. It bothers me more than I would have thought. Now I can't see today's progress in the pretty (or in my case pretty sad) little graph.

Sitting down to write without thinking about other things is really paying off. Even if I only find the time to write one sad little paragraph, often the words just come rolling in by themselves and I just type and type, sometimes seemingly without thinking. It's as if this book is writing itself, or at least it definitely wants to be written. Even if I don't make it to 50,000 in November, I won't give up.

Besides, I reread the beginning of my novel, and I'm starting to really like it.

ETA: Apparently they know about the word count / stats bug and are currently working on fixing it.

Sitting down to write without thinking about other things is really paying off. Even if I only find the time to write one sad little paragraph, often the words just come rolling in by themselves and I just type and type, sometimes seemingly without thinking. It's as if this book is writing itself, or at least it definitely wants to be written.

YES! I love when that happens. I think of it as the characters leading the story and just telling me what to write. That happens usually when my main character has talks with her best friend. And when my characters decide to go somewhere or do something.

Phoenix wrote:

Besides, I reread the beginning of my novel, and I'm starting to really like it.

I did this yesterday! And then I stayed up super late reading it and couldn't finish it since I had to go to bed. I didn't want to stop reading. I think that's a good sign, but then again I wrote the story and it's what I would want to read myself, so it might not mean anything

I noticed that if I jump to a scene I'm excited to write, I get back my writing mojo.

I noticed this too and I decided that from here on in, I'm only going to write scenes that excite me. Besides, if I'm bored just writing a scene, I figure any eventual readers would be bored reading it.

I've had a good writing day. I've actually managed to cross the 15,000 mark!If I continue like this, I might just make it.My favourite scene of the day: the protagonist, lacking a first-aid kit, has to ask the person he most dislikes to bandage his hand.It might sound strange, but it was so much fun.